<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4De2Jy_0wOSM7Fh00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4De2Jy_0wOSM7Fh00" width="980" height="653" ><figcaption>Jen Ursillo</figcaption></figure><h2>💀 Halloween lovers will enjoy getting spooked at this South Jersey house</h2><h2>💀It's a full immersive display with hundreds of decorations and lights</h2><h2>💀The display is open for several more days for everyone to enjoy</h2><p>LUMBERTON — It can be so much fun walking around your neighborhood and checking out all the house Halloween decorations and displays. Some are more elaborate than others. Some have a ton of lights. Others have animatronics.</p><p>But if you really love Halloween, and you want to feel immersed in the spookiness, then you can’t miss this Burlington County Victorian home, located at 2 Ross St.</p><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1gEgpZ_0wOSM7Fh00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1gEgpZ_0wOSM7Fh00" width="1600" height="1067" ><figcaption>Secrets of the Cursed Swamp, 2 Ross Street, Lumberton (Jennifer Grimm)</figcaption></figure><h2>The Inspiration</h2><p>This is the fifth year that homeowner and Halloween display creator Braden Mauer-Burns has been going all out for Halloween, but this is his third year having an immersive walkthrough.</p><p>“It started when I bought my house in 2019, you know, it’s an older Victorian house which is kind of spooky in and of itself. I got like five trick-or-treaters that year, and I was like, oh, this is quite sad,” Mauer-Burns said.</p><p>His goal from then on was to dial up the Halloween. Now, it’s an immersive walkthrough with a different theme every year.</p><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4gX9rY_0wOSM7Fh00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4gX9rY_0wOSM7Fh00" width="1600" height="1067" ><figcaption>Secrets of the Cursed Swamp, 2 Ross Street, Lumberton (Jennifer Grimm)</figcaption></figure><p>While he lost count of how many pieces and strands of lights he has, Mauer-Burns said it’s in the hundreds. He uses every inch of the corner lot that his home sits on, just under a fifth of an acre. It’s not big, but he created an immersive walkthrough on almost the entire inch of the property.</p><p>“I built this immersive experience on the exterior of the home. So every year it’s a bit different, and I do a different theme every year. I’ll reuse things. I’ll repurpose things. I’ll build new things,” Mauer-Burns said.</p><p>He was always obsessed with the lines at Disneyland because sometimes, on those lines, guests experience something awesome before they get on the ride. He wants people to walk into and through the display.</p><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3zQmWh_0wOSM7Fh00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3zQmWh_0wOSM7Fh00" width="1600" height="1067" ><figcaption>Secrets of the Cursed Swamp, 2 Ross Street, Lumberton (Jennifer Grimm)</figcaption></figure><h2>The Theme</h2><p>This year’s theme is "Secrets of the Cursed Swamp."</p><p>He was at a Halloween trade show in April and one of the makers had this life-size crocodile prop.</p><p>“The only reason I have a swamp is because of that one prop, and I was like, oh, okay, I want to do a swamp,” he said.</p><p>Mauer-Burns built a 16-foot-tall pirate ship and it looks and feels like a real pirate ship, he said.</p><p>“It has sea sludge and slime. Guests will be able to walk through. There’s I think, possibly 10 to 13 different little scenes throughout,” he said.</p><p>Once guests go through the pirate cave, there’s a giant skull cave people have to navigate, and then from there, they go to the cursed swamp. They’ll encounter sea creatures, monsters, and of course the witch, who lives in the swamp, he said. Also in the swamp is the two-story Fisherman’s Wharf, which Mauer-Burns built himself.</p><p>What makes his display different from so many other houses also set up beautifully for Halloween is the immersiveness. “I want you to feel like you’re in the swamp, you’re in the pirate ship. I’m not going to build it if I don’t feel like you can actually be in it,” Mauer-Burns said.</p><h2>More photos of Secrets of the Cursed Swamp are below</h2><h2>The Thought Process</h2><p>Mauer-Burns said he already has next year’s theme planned out in his head. He’ll start getting his ducks in order sometime in the early spring, and then he and his team start building sets in July.</p><p>So, while everyone in the neighborhood is still enjoying the pools and barbecue in the middle of summer, Mauer-Burns is busy constructing his Halloween decoration display.</p><p>He said the front part of the yard typically takes him two weeks. That’s the easy part. It’s all the stuff on the side and in the back. That takes him months to construct and set up.</p><p>The displays are usually ready for spectators to enjoy by the second week of October.</p><p>He’s had more than 1,000 people visit the display each of the nights it’s open.</p><p>When Halloween is over, all the pieces are broken down and brought to a storage unit.</p><p>The Halloween display at 2 Ross Street in Lumberton is open for everyone to walk through and enjoy tonight through Sunday, and next Wednesday through Saturday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.</p><p><a href="mailto:trenton.dme@townsquaremedia.com?subject=Feedback%20or%20correction">Report a correction</a> <i>👈 | 👉</i> <a href="https://nj1015.com/contact-nj-1015-newsroom/">Contact our newsroom</a></p></div></body>

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Step into a mystical ‘cursed swamp’ in Lumberton, NJ

LUMBERTON — It can be so much fun walking around your neighborhood and checking out all the house Halloween decorations and displays. Some are more elaborate than others. Some have a ton of lights. Others have animatronics. But if you really love Halloween, and you want to feel immersed...